From Tanzania Correspondent Lute wa Lutengano…

I have this tendency to surrender myself to the law enforcement officers in any town I visit and plan to spend a night or more. It is not that I am prone to breaking laws but rather I feel more secure when I know that the Police chiefs in my new destination do now of my presence. That is just in case. And luckily I am acquainted with many of them in the various Tanzanian towns.

So as I drove towards Morogoro town the other week I called the Police chiefs in that town to inform them of my arrival and overnight stay. I arrived in the evening and checked at a recommended newly established facility, Gwami Hotel. I must admit that this is a homely and clean facility which is very convenient to transit travellers like me, because it is near the Dar es Salaam , Dodoma and Iringa highways.

There is not much night life at this establishment, no wonder I found myself patronising the nearby Gold Park night club. It is here that my Police friends caught up with me and we sat down for some drinks and the attendant ‘nyama choma’.

Naturally the topics we discussed veered towards crime in the region. I was told they, the Police chiefs, had undertaken some heavy crackdown on crime in the region and now it was on the wane. Remember Morogoro, I was told, was always the main hideout or playground for Dar es Salaam criminals.

However, I must admit, some of the crimes I was told of must be unique to Morogoro only. Take this case of a young man who cut his own manhood after being told he could sell it, or rather it could fetch a cool 10 million/- on the market. I saw the naked picture of the young man without his pendulum. Poor him, I was told, he died before he could suffer more for his folly.

Then there were the Kilombero Bank robbers. Theirs was an enterprise which assembled criminals, who were actually prominent businessmen from Dar es Salaam , Morogoro and Dodoma . The group of a little more than ten formed a special committee on the Bank job. They also had special sub-committees on transport; security; gas works; gate-away; and financial matters. Little did they know that they had been infiltrated by the police.

On the grand day as they assembled the gas tanks and began cutting the iron grills to the Bank safe room, the police ambushed them all, except for the planner, a young man with expert computer knowledge who is still on the run. In the fire exchange that ensured they were all killed. Again I saw the pictures of the dead and heavily built ‘entrepreneurs’.

Another group of bandits was betrayed by the love of a woman who befriended one of them. This group specialised in robbing lorries laden with luxury goods on the steep slopes between Dodoma and Iringa. Little did they know that the woman, with a generous posterior, was actually a cop. The bandits were ambushed as they slept in a guest house with their ‘woman.’ They put up a gunfight and all perished in the resultant heavy police fire. Again pictures of their dead bodies were there to prove all.

The next day I proceeded to Makambako in Njombe district. The southern road from Mikumi is being done by some Scandinavian company. It is a great and amazing job they are doing. At the Iringa town escarpment, for example, the company has decided to widen the meandering road by cutting deep into the imposing rocky face of the slope.

I scaled the road into town amidst the heavy road – works. As is always the case, I proceeded straight to Miami Bar at Mlandege where all connoisseurs of ‘ugali’ and ‘nyama choma’ in Iringa town assemble for their lunch. It is here that I called the Makambako Police chiefs that I would there in the evening and naturally for several overnights.